My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana is on watching the first Monday Night Football telecast and how set the template for what we see today.

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Last week, I wrote about ESPN’s Megacast offering a myriad of platforms to consume the college football championship game. Coming next year: A Megacast option allowing viewers to exercise with Richard Simmons while watching the game.

Next week, NBC will have 24,916 cameras for its coverage of the Super Bowl. Looking forward to the Tom Brady toe nail cam.

So it seemed fitting in a time when sports TV continues to push various envelopes, I got a chance to see where it all came from: ABC’s debut of “Monday Night Football” in 1970.

On Friday, Mike Bass, my old Daily Illini teammate, invited me to join his Northwestern sports journalism class in watching the monumental telecast at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.

I told the class ABC’s coverage of the Jets-Cleveland game on Sept. 21, 1970, truly was an indelible moment in TV sports history. It only changed everything, the seed from which ESPN, sports talk radio and basically modern sports TV was born.

Prior to that game, TV sports coverage was straight down the middle, devoid of any bells and whistles.

“An NFL telecast almost was a church event,” Al Michaels recalled last week.

Also, the notion that viewers would watch the NFL in prime time was ludicrous in 1970. CBS actually passed on the opportunity because it didn’t want to bump the “Doris Day Show” on Monday night. Think about that one for a while.

Enter Roone Arledge, arguably the single most important figure ever in TV sports. He decided to turn “Monday Night Football” into an event, not just a game. While the other networks used four cameras to televise game, and mostly relying on the 50-yard line angle, Arledge used nine or 10 cameras, providing shots never seen on a football telecast.

Arledge also foisted Howard Cosell on an unsuspecting nation. Instead of bland football analysis, Cosell’s provocative and polarizing persona was a culture shock. You can argue that sports talk radio and all those sports studio shows started with the man who always said, “I tell it like it is.”

Previously, I only had seen snippets of ABC’s first MNF telecast. It was a real treat to see the whole thing, complete with commercials.

Speaking of commercials, cigarette advertising still was allowed on TV in 1970. Let history show that the first ad on MNF featured the Marlboro man, drinking coffee and taking a deep drag on the high plain.

I also have to note an incredibly sexist ad for Goodyear. It showed a woman nervously driving through the rain to pick up her husband at the airport. The point was that a man should think of his feeble wife when buying the best and safest tires. Hard to believe that aired in my lifetime.

One other thing also stood out: the commercial breaks only were one minute. That’s it. And there was no such thing as the dreaded touchdown, 2-2:30 run of ads, kickoff, and then another 2-2:30 break combination. What a novel concept: 60 seconds and then back to football.

Cosell opened the telecast by saying, “Welcome to ABC’s primetime, nationally-televised National Football League series.”

The open included Cosell interviewing Joe Namath, who really was a presence with his long, wavy hair. Then his introduction to Don Meredith gave a prelude for the future irreverence on MNF. It featured a montage of “Dandy Dan” getting clobbered during his days as Dallas’ quarterback.

“I didn’t know y’all were going to do that,” Meredith said.

Yet beyond mocking Meredith, the initial stages of that first telecast were fairly conventional. Back then, the play-by-play man dominated the telecasts. Keith Jackson was the only voice viewers heard through Jets’ first series, a 3-and-out resulting in a punt, and the first three plays of the Browns series. Finally, Cosell weighed in with a generic observation on tight end Milt Morin.

During the second quarter, I turned to Mike and said, “You know, this is pretty dull.” I’m sure the students were wondering if my flagging memory had inflated how good early MNF actually was.

“Remember,” I told the class. “This was their first game. They didn’t go from 0 to 60 right out of the gate.”

Sure enough, some snippets of their true personalities eventually emerged. There was this exchange.

Jackson: “You can tell by now that Cleveland Stadium is a cacophony of sound.”

Meredith: “What in the world is that?”

Jackson: “I got that from Howard.”

Later, Meredith couldn’t hold back in discussing Cleveland receiver Fair Hooker.

“Isn’t Fair Hooker a great name?” Meredith said.

“I pass,” Cosell said.

At halftime, Cosell displayed his singular talents in narrating the highlights for the first time from Sunday’s games. “There’s the irrepressible Deacon Jones,” he said, sending viewers to their dictionaries.

Then there was his immortal label for “the New York Football Giants,” a term Chris Berman still uses in tribute to Cosell.

Meredith and Cosell seemed to step it up in the second half, as they got more comfortable with their roles in the telecast. In a few weeks, they would hit their stride, prompting Cosell to eventually boast that viewers tuned in to watch them as much as the game.

Through the perspective of college students in 2015, the first MNF telecast had to seem uninspiring. No score box; no first down line; no elaborately produced graphics.

Yet you had to view the game through the prism of a sports TV viewer in 1970. That first telecast was so cutting edge. The multiple cameras allowed Arledge to deliver isolation shots on players. He showed replays from an endzone view. Arledge also placed microphones on the field, capturing sound from players.

The game ended with a famous shot of Namath, with his head bowed and slumped shoulders, after he threw an interception to seal the Browns’ win. Director Chet Forte kept the cameras on him for nearly 30 seconds, capturing the emotions of the great quarterback in defeat. Football fans hadn’t seen or heard a game that way before.

Arledge also changed the dynamic with his pairing of Cosell and Meredith. You could argue that it paved the way for the highly unconventional John Madden to become a TV superstar in the ‘80s.

Arledge always wanted his good friend Frank Gifford to be part of the telecast. However, “The Giffer” still was under contract to CBS in 1970. When he became available, Arledge made him the play-by-play voice for MNF in 1971. He told a dejected Jackson that he would be great on college football. How did that work out?

Indeed, Arledge was a true genius in TV, as he also transformed ABC News. I told the class when he died in 2002, my obituary on him ran on A-1 of the Chicago Tribune.

“He turned the way sports are done inside out,” said Dick Ebersol, his protégée.

As the years pass, Arledge’s legacy will fade. Yet those in the business never will forget him. In fact, every NFL telecast, including NBC’s upcoming work on the Super Bowl, pays tribute to Arledge.

Arledge laid out the blueprint with that first telecast of Monday Night Football in 1970. They’re still using it today.

I live in Chicago, but I’m not one of those Packers-hating Bear fans. I think Aaron Rodgers is terrific and love the tradition of what goes on in Green Bay.

However, I also had another reason to root for the Packers Sunday: Marshawn Lynch.

I really did not want to see Lynch get another shot at making a mockery of his media duties at the Super Bowl. Damn.

The Seattle running back already gave a sneak preview of his act in Arizona by completely snubbing the media after his terrific performance Sunday. It seems he also could be in line for more fines beyond not talking.

Ryan Parker of the Los Angeles Times reports:

The Seattle Seahawks controversial running back Marshawn Lynch had a huge game Sunday, helping his team beat the Green Bay Packers, and, for a second year in a row, advance to the Super Bowl.

He also appeared to make an inappropriate gesture while celebrating a touchdown, again, and refused to talk to the media, again. Odds are good that fines are — once again — coming his way.

Lynch, also known as “Beast Mode” for his relentless running style when he has the ball, has already been fined more than $100,000 this season for what the NFL determines as poor behavior.

It is no secret Lynch does not like speaking to the media, but recently he has played ball — to a point. The last few weeks, Lynch has talked to reporters, but only given one word answers, such as “Yeah.”

After the big win Sunday, he didn’t even do that.

Classy guy, right?

So now there’s going to be a Marshawn Lynch watch at media day next week. You can expect he will mock reporters who are just trying to do their jobs.

If Lynch has a beef with the NFL’s policy requiring players to talk, he needs to take it up with the Players Association. Otherwise, show up, answer a few questions and leave. It isn’t that hard.

Lynch’s presence really makes it difficult to decide who to root for in the Super Bowl. I’d like to see Tom Brady win a fourth title, but then I’d have to pull for Bill Belichick.

My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana looks at the future of sports TV with ESPN’s Megacast. I know two people who weren’t fans.

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I have two teenage sons who serve as my de facto lab for assessing trends in sports TV.

Matt, a 19-year-old college freshman, and Sam, a 17-year-old high school junior, are in the wheelhouse for sports programmers. They are sports obsessed. Our TVs have games or ESPN blasting nearly 24/7.

So I pay close attention to what they watch. Early on, I could see them gravitating to the Blackhawks when they were just beginning their run in 2009. It was a sign hockey could become huge in Chicago, which indeed has occurred.

Even though they are avid Cubs and White Sox fans, you couldn’t pay them to sit through a marathon World Series game. Their friends feel the same way. Granted it is a small sample size, but it seems to be a clear indicator that the younger demo is checking out on baseball.

So with that in mind, the three of us, plus Sherman the dog (think Sherman & Peabody), settled in to watch the college football championship game Monday night. Quickly, I started to bang on the remote, finding the various channels for ESPN’s Megacast presentation.

We watched a few minutes of the coaches in the Film Room; a snippet of Michael Wilbon and others eating sandwiches in the somewhat bizarre “Voices”; and something called “Off The Ball,” which I couldn’t quite figure out.

I figured my sons would enjoy all the additional viewing options for Monday’s game. After all, they are the essence of the short-attention span generation. It feels as if their cell phones are permanently glued to their fingers.

However, Matt became somewhat exasperated as I diverted from the conventional coverage early in the second quarter to check out the Megacast.

“Dad,” Matt said. “Would you stop it?”

“What do you mean?” I responded.

“Just keep the game on ESPN,” he said.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “This Megacast is aimed for you guys. You don’t want to watch it?”

“No, we don’t care about (the Megacast),” he said. “We just want to watch the game.”

There you have it, ESPN research. The young demo in the Sherman household preferred old school on Monday.

Clearly, the dynamic is changing for how the networks will present games, especially big games. The days of one screen, one telecast are coming to an end.

In fact, they already are done when you consider that most sports viewers, including those from my generation, watch games while following reaction on social media, along with monitoring various websites.

ESPN took it to another level offering 12 different options (including radio and Internet) to consume Monday’s game. When you have as many platforms as ESPN, you might as well use them, right? While I couldn’t get into watching Wilbon eat, I did like the Film Room with the various coaches breaking down the game in a way that went far beyond Kirk Herbstreit’s analysis on ESPN. However, I’m not sure why ESPN insisted using the large part of the screen to show a coach talking while the live action was relegated to a small portion in the upper corner.

Despite my son’s complaints, I persisted on switching back and forth between the game and the Megacast until midway through the third quarter. Then sensory overload set in. Eventually, I found the banter on the other outlets distracting, if not mentally taxing. It almost felt like trying to watch a movie while simultaneously listening to the critics debate the director’s work.

Finally, I had enough. The game was so good, I just wanted to hear Chris Fowler and Herbstreit on the call. My night with Megacast was done.

There’s little question that this whole multi-platform approach is a work in progress. Recently, Comcast SportsNet Chicago experimented in presenting Bulls and Blackhawks games in a quad-box format on a secondary channel. The regular feed was in one corner with different perspectives, including a player isolation, comprising the other three views. In theory, it seemed interesting, but I found it difficult to follow the game with four screens in one.

The most promising of the out-of-box presentations was CBS giving viewers the option of hearing home-team calls on other channels during last year’s Final Four. It was entertaining to hear the emotions of biased announcers. Hopefully, CBS will do it again.

Other alternative concepts surely are in the works. As with anything, viewers will require an adjustment period to get used to changes. Remember the initial uproar when Fox introduced the score box into a game telecast? Too distracting, people said. Now it seems crazy to think of a telecast without a score box.

The potential is vast and likely staggers the imagination. Sports on TV in 2025 definitely will be different. Provided, of course, TV still exists.

Ultimately, though, it always will be about being able to follow the game. In my house last Monday, the younger demo weighed in: They voted for the game. The future can wait.